IRS electronic filing system crashes on Tax Day

April 17 (UPI) — As the filing deadline on Tax Day approached, the Internal Revenue Service page that allows users to pay taxes directly from their bank accounts crashed.

Just before noon on Tuesday, the IRS “Direct Pay” page was unavailable. The “Payment Plan” page, which lets tax filers to set up installment plans, also crashed.

A message on both pages said, “This service is currently unavailable. We apologize for any inconvenience.”

IRS Acting Commissioner David Kautter confirmed the problem to lawmakers during the IRS oversight hearing Tuesday.

“On my way over here this morning, I was told a number of systems are down at the moment,” Kautter said. “We are working to resolve the issue and taxpayers should continue to file as they normally would.”

Despite some returns not going through mid-day, Kautter said people could continue to use the systems to file their taxes. The full extent of the website failure was not immediately known.